


Saving Tantalus

by galaxysoup



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-27
Updated: 2003-05-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysoup/pseuds/galaxysoup
Summary: “No prize is worth attaining if you can never share it. There would be no point.” – Ernest Littlefield
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Saving Tantalus

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [The Comfort Zone](http://www.sg1hc.com/main.shtml) fanfic archive.

## Saving Tantalus

It wasn't working. 

Sam sighed and rubbed her burning eyes with one hand, casting a baleful look in the general direction of her recalcitrant reactor. Six hours of work, and the damned thing still wouldn't bloody well turn on. 

She needed more naquadah. She needed sleep. She needed coffee. She needed... Daniel. If anyone could raise her spirits, he could. 

She got to her feet, rolling her shoulders to ease her tired muscles, and ambled out into the corridor. The halls were mostly empty; it was two in the morning on a Saturday and most of the SGC had fled the mountain at 1700 and twenty seconds Friday evening. 

But, as the Colonel had pointed out on more than one occasion, Sam didn't have a life outside of the mountain and neither did Daniel. She was pretty sure she'd find him unraveling the meaning of life in his office, Saturday morning or not. 

Sure enough, light spilled from her partner in get-a-life-dom's open office door into the dimly lit hall. He was at his desk, three-hole-punching a large stack of papers and fitting them neatly into a two-inch red three-ring binder. Sam frowned, distracted from her reactor woes by the puzzle in front of her. 

"Hi Sam," Daniel said, glancing up from his work. He looked wide-awake and alert as usual. Daniel's sleep patterns made Janet get all pensive. 

"You're disturbingly perky for two in the morning." 

Daniel looked at her over the tops of his glasses. "Perky?" he said with all the supreme disdain of a linguist who could still claim fluency in twenty-three languages at two AM. 

Sam grinned, smelling the freshly brewed coffee on the counter behind Daniel. "Cheerful. Chipper. Bright. Intelligent. Compos mentis. Not sleep deprived. Certainly not.... perky." 

Daniel smiled and gestured gallantly towards his coffe maker. "Help yourself." 

Sam grabbed a mostly clean mug from Daniel's stash and poured herself a cup, drained it, and poured another. Daniel raised his eyebrows. "Reactor problems?" 

"How'd you guess?" 

Daniel flicked an amused finger in the direction of the mug Sam was holding. "You only ever use that mug when you're really pissed." 

Sam gave the mug a once-over. It had a picture of some sort of death mask on the side which, now that she thought about it, was extremely disturbing. She grimaced and handed the mug to Daniel, filling a new one for herself. He laughed. 

"What's that?" Sam asked, gesturing in the direction of Daniel's hole-punching project. 

"This?" Daniel punched the last stack of paper and fitted it neatly into the binder. "The Universe According to Daniel Jackson, Volume Six." 

Sam laughed. "No, really, what is it?" 

"The Universe According to Daniel Jackson, Volume Six," Daniel repeated patiently. 

Sam blinked. "Volume Six?" she repeated cautiously. "That would imply that there are five others." She'd never noticed him writing books before. The stack of paper he had now was at least a good three hundred pages. 

"Yup," Daniel said cheerfully, closing the binder and scribbling 'Chronicles VI' on the spine with black permanent marker. He glanced up and saw her surprised expression. "Come on." He tucked the binder under one arm and headed for the door. Sam gulped the last of her coffee and followed. 

Daniel led her down to an archaeology store room on level 26, opening the door with his security card and ushering Sam inside. She followed him to a set of shelves at the back of the room already groaning under the weight of several binders like the one Daniel was carrying. Daniel slid his binder into place at the end of one of the shelves and stepped back, glancing at her. 

Sam reached up to trail her fingers along the notebooks. There were at least fifteen of them that she could see; the six red ones labelled 'Chronicles' and a number of others whose colors didn't seem to follow any kind of pattern. 

"How long have you been doing this?" 

Daniel shrugged. "Since we rescued Ernest. It occurred to me that all the documentation about the program was in reports, and while those are very thorough they're not exactly the most exciting read. So I figured I'd start writing down what happened to us." He jerked his chin in the direction of the red binders. "That's what the Chronicles are. It's a history of the SGC, basically. The same as the mission reports, but a little more... user friendly." 

"Wow." Sam stepped back from the shelf. "I had no idea you were doing this." 

"Well, I never really told anyone. I mean, it's not like anyone here needs to read them - we've lived it, we all remember. But if the program ever becomes public knowledge at least we'll have an orderly record of what we've been doing." 

"It's a good idea," Sam said. A very Daniel idea, too, now that she thought about it. "So that's what your journals are for?" 

"No," Daniel shook his head. "Those are personal. I use them for reference sometimes, but the Chronicles are more than just me or SG-1. I try to keep track of what's going on in the rest of the base too." 

"What's in the other binders?" 

Daniel pulled out a green binder and turned it over in his hands. "Books, mostly. Articles I'll never get to publish. That sort of thing. Maybe if the program ever goes public I'll be able to submit some of it." 

Sam gave him a sidelong look. "Daniel... you know why you can't tell anyone..." she let her voice trail off, making it a question. 

Daniel grimaced. "I know. And I do agree. I don't think the world is ready to know yet. But..." he shrugged again. "I'm a scholar, Sam. Teaching others what I know is part of who I am. It doesn't feel right not to at least write it down, even if I'll never be able to share it." 

Sam smiled back and squeezed his shoulder. "I know. I wish you could tell everyone." 

Daniel smiled sadly and replaced the green binder on the shelf. "Yeah." 

"What's that one?" She gestured at another notebook, changing the subject before it could get too depressing. 

"The black binder?" He looked embarassed. "Oh. It's, um..." He pulled it off the shelf and waved it vaguely in her direction. "Obituaries." 

Sam raised her eyebrows, taking the book. "Obituaries?" She opened a page at random and read: "Major Alexander Boudrine, declared MIA and presumed dead 11/05/99 when he and his team, SG-6, were mimicked by a group of unknown aliens who later invaded the base (see Chronicles V, pages 274-293)." 

"Yeah. When you and Jack were stuck in Antarctica, before we realized where you were, General Hammond told me you were declared MIA. After we got you back I sort of realized that if we hadn't found you, your families would never know what had happened. So I started writing down everyone who died and what was said at the memorial services - you know, the on-base ones?" 

Sam nodded; she could see the logic. On-base memorial services tended to be on-base because of the classified nature of the program. You couldn't exactly go and tell someone's widow her husband had died saving the Earth from an alien invasion, so off-base the memorial services tended towards the generic and obscure: died in the service of his country, heroism under fire, saved the lives of his men. The on-base services were where the real details came out: the friendships, the funny anecdotes about off-world missions, all the little personal reasons why someone would be mourned. 

"If the program ever goes public, the families will be able to find out what happened," Sam said. 

Daniel smiled, pleased she had understood. "Yeah. That's what I was thinking, anyway." 

It had to be the lack of sleep, Sam thought as she found herself inexplicably tearing up. Majors with PhDs in astrophysics did not cry at the drop of a hat. She pulled Daniel into a hug, felt him hesitate and then hug her back. 

"You're a good man, Daniel Jackson." 

* * *

Daniel shifted his papers awkwardly against his sling. A rainstorm offworld had made the path to the Stargate treacherously slippery and, as the team's designated canary, Daniel had managed to find the slipperiest spot to step in and had earned himself a dislocated shoulder for his troubles. It ached like crazy and made it horrendously difficult to carry anything larger than a coffee cup. 

The papers slid from his grasp and he quickly shoved his hip against the wall, pinning them in place before they could hit the ground. Now, if he could just grab them somehow... 

"Hey, Doc, you need a hand there?" An airman Daniel had seen around but never met before deposited his P-90 on the floor of the hall and rescued Daniel's papers, stacking them neatly. 

"Where you headed? I'll walk you. I hate carrying stuff with a sling." 

"Oh!" Daniel blinked in astonishment. "Great! Um, my office. Thanks..." He glanced at the man's nametag. "... Lieutenant DeVeux." 

"No problem!" DeVeux gave him a huge smile and retrieved his gun. "Hey, I've been meaning to thank you for doing the obituary thing." 

Daniel did a surreptitious check for Rod Serling. "Obituary thing?" He said blankly. 

"You know, writing up all the obituaries and putting them in the base library. They're next to the Chronicles? Anyway, it means a lot that someone's writing that stuff down for, you know, posterity or whatever. I just wanted to say thanks." 

"You're welcome," Daniel said, trying hard to make it look like he had some clue as to what the man was talking about. 

"I haven't read any of the Chronicles yet because the first one's been out for like a week," DeVeux went on. "But I've heard they're really great." 

"Oh," Daniel said faintly. "I hadn't realized anyone was actually reading them." 

"Sure!" DeVeux smiled again, opening the door to Daniel's office and waving him inside. "It's neat. Sort of gives this whole thing a feeling of grandeur, you know? Makes it feel epic." He waggled the folders questioningly. "Where do you want these?" 

"Um, just on the desk is fine. Thanks for helping me out." 

"Any time, Doc," DeVeux said. "You need anything else?" 

"No, thank you. I think I'll be fine in here." 

"Okay. Take care of yourself, Doc. Door open or closed?" 

"Um, open's fine, thanks." 

"Okay." With a last smile, DeVeux vanished into the hallway. 

Daniel stared at the open door and tried to make the last few minutes resemble some kind of sense. He picked up his phone, cradling it awkwardly against his shoulder as he dialed with his good hand. 

"Carter," Sam said cheerfully. 

"Hi, Sam, it's Daniel." 

"Hi Daniel, what's up?" 

"Well, I just had a very interesting conversation with a Lieutenant DeVeux that I was hoping you could shed some light on." 

"Shoot," Sam said equably. 

"He wanted to thank me for writing Obituaries?" 

"Oh!" Sam said excitedly. "You got feedback! That's so cool!" 

"Yeah, but how did he read them? They were locked in a storage room, last I checked." 

There was a telling pause. 

"Uh, about that... the Colonel and I put all your books in the base library so people could actually read them. I know it's not the same as publishing them, but we thought it might be nice. I gather they're quite popular." She cleared her throat uncertainly. "Do you mind? We would have asked you, but we wanted it to be a surprise. It's okay, isn't it?" 

"It's great," Daniel said, surprised but touched. "Thank you, Sam." 

"No problem." He could hear the relief in her voice. 

"See you at the briefing?" 

"Sure, see you then." 

Daniel smiled to himself and picked up the stack of papers DeVeux had left on his desk. He'd better get cracking, if he wanted to be done in time to take Sam out to dinner as thanks. It was the least he could do, for such a good friend. 

**FINIS**


End file.
